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  “All right.” Maggie sighed and snuggled against him. Feeling much more content than she had a right to feel, she finally drifted off to sleep.

  * * * * *

  “We are losing him.” Xandra the swamp witch peered into her cauldron, frowning at the scene she had just witnessed. “First he wanders off course to go rescue that stupid little human girl and now he’s falling in love with her.”

  “We won’t lose him.” The glowing red eyes of her demon husband flared briefly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “What can you possibly do? He may not know it but he’s Kindred—Touch Kindred. If he bonds her to him…if he gives her the Deep Touch…”

  “He won’t.” A deep, animalistic growl sounded. “And even if he does, the seed has been planted. A seed that grows every day and night. A seed that will bring him back to us.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Xandra frowned and stirred the cauldron. “He must if I am ever to have my revenge.”

  “And if I am to be made flesh…even for a time.”

  “Do you think his body will last once you enter it? Hosting one of your kind is difficult for us mortals.”

  “You did fine as I recall,” the demon murmured.

  “You only fucked me,” she reminded him. “You wish to indwell Therron—to invade him and push his consciousness aside so you can use his body as your own.”

  “And so I shall,” he growled. “This human girl shall not have him—I won’t let her ruin our plans. We have worked too hard and too long to surrender now simply because Therron thinks himself in love.”

  “But…” Xandra began. However, she was speaking to the empty air. The glowing red eyes were gone.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Maggie woke up to the sound of low, animalistic growling in the darkness.

  “Who…what? What’s going on?” She sat up abruptly, forgetting where she was and who she was with.

  The growl sounded again and this time it was very close—actually in the bed with her! An unspeakable terror came over her and the room suddenly seemed to be twenty degrees colder. Maggie wanted to run, wanted to get away from that low growling but she felt frozen, barely able to move. Turning her head in that slow, horror movie way, she saw a pair of glowing red eyes burning in the darkness. Then a low, grating, inhuman voice began to speak.

  “Therron is mine, little human. The seed has been planted. The pain of the past will mix with the pain of the future and he will be mine. My flesh puppet to do with as I wish.”

  “I…I…” Maggie couldn’t make any words come out. Beside her in the darkness the burning red eyes blazed and the growling voice continued.

  “I will drag him back to the Black Planet and then I will wear him…wear him until he is useless and worn out and then I will discard him like the others before.”

  Maggie’s vocal chords finally unfroze. She gave a high pitched scream and scrambled off the bed. Oh my God, oh my God, OhmyGod! What the hell is that thing and where is Kor?

  Kor—suddenly everything came back to her. She was supposed to be with Kor. He was sleeping beside her. So what was this creature with the glowing red eyes doing in his place?

  “Kor!” she screamed. “Kor, help me! Where are you?”

  There was a sudden commotion on the other side of the bed and she heard him roaring for lights. They came on at once, flooding the room with brilliance that made Maggie blink. She looked wildly around for a dark creature with glowing red eyes but there was nothing—no one but Kor and his eyes were still their normal pale blue, though they were filled with concern for her.

  “Maggie? Maggie what is it?” He took her by the shoulders and shook her once, firmly. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  “I saw a creature—a thing. Its eyes were red and glowing and it said it owned you and it would use you as a…” She started to cry. “As some kind of a puppet, whatever that means.”

  “Means you had a nightmare,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Listen to me, Maggie—it wasn’t real.”

  “It seemed real.” Maggie pressed the edge of the sheet to her eyes. “It was sitting right where you are now and I felt such a…such a presence of evil. The room got colder all of a sudden and that thing, it called you ‘Therron’ or ‘Faron’ or something like that. I didn’t understand why but I knew it was talking about you.”

  “Therron, you say?” Kor frowned and shifted uncomfortably.

  “Yes.” Maggie nodded frantically. “Do you…do you know the name?”

  Kor shook his head and looked away. “No and neither do you. Because it was just a dream, Maggie—only a dream.”

  “I’m telling you, it seemed real.” Maggie finished drying her eyes on the sheet and frowned at him. “Tell me, where did you say you were going before you came to get me? Was it the Black Planet?”

  Kor looked even more uncomfortable. “I was following a lead. Remember what the night porter said about only seeing one other person like me before? I just wanted to know my origins—wanted to be able to control my vision so I didn’t hurt anybody. So I didn’t hurt you.”

  “Well, you can’t go back there,” Maggie said with utter conviction. “You can’t, Kor—no matter what. It’s a bad place and I’m afraid if you go, something awful will happen to you.”

  “It was just a dream. Hey, come here, come on…” Slowly he coaxed her back into his arms, stroking her hair and murmuring sweet nothings until she was almost calm. He dimmed the lights but didn’t put them all the way out. Then he lay back on the bed and simply held her.

  “Promise,” Maggie murmured drowsily when her heartbeat had calmed down and she was finally sleepy again. “Promise you won’t go there.”

  But she never heard Kor’s promise—before she could, she drifted off to sleep again. This time there were no interruptions and she slept until morning.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “You found her?” Sylvan stared at the long-distance viewscreen he’d recently had installed in his suite. Since becoming a member of the Kindred High Council, he’d been conducting a lot more interstellar business and he found it easier to do it from home. After all, he couldn’t constantly be running off to the viewing room—not now that he and Sophia had the twins to look after.

  “I found traces of her.” The male on the viewscreen was tall with dark hair and eyes—his right eye, anyway. The left was covered with a black patch. Combined with the closely clipped mustache and goatee that framed his square jaw, it gave him a rakish, untrustworthy air.

  Salix L’Tm was a bounty hunter and Sylvan didn’t trust him—not as far as he could throw him. The male was part Blood Kindred…and part something else. What, Sylvan didn’t know and he didn’t particularly care, either. All that mattered was that Salix was the best at what he did—finding people who were lost or who didn’t want to be found. Which was why Sylvan had decided to hire him to find Maggie Jordon when the regular Kindred search team had failed.

  “What traces? Where are you at?” he demanded, frowning at Salix. “Still on Yonnie Six?”

  “Not any more. I’m on my way to the Flesh Bazaar—in the Hub.”

  “What?” Sylvan exclaimed. “You think she was sold as a slave?”

  Salix gave him a most unpleasant grin, his one visible eye twinkling darkly.

  “I know she was. And she’s not the only one.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “First things first.” Salix held up one leather gloved hand. “I picked up the trail at Lady Pope’nose’s place.”

  “The female who denied ever having met Maggie?”

  “The same.” Salix grinned and stroked his closely clipped goatee. “It appears that her ladyship wasn’t exactly honest with us. In fact, she’s the one who grabbed Maggie in the first place.”

  “What?” Sylvan’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “That’s outrageous! Maggie was under our protection. This Lady Pope'nose will pay for daring to—”

  Salix held up a hand t